Osamu Kitagawa's company creates the masks - which wouldn't look out of place in a sci fi movie - by transferring high quality photographs onto 3D prototypes.

The rest of the process is secret.

They're certainly in demand - from film makers to organisations in Saudi Arabia.

One Japanese automobile company used a mask showing someone asleep - to improve their vehicles' ability to detect when a driver dozes off at the wheel.

But that's not the only ambition for these lifelike masks.

PRESIDENT OF REAL-f CO.,LTD, OSAMU KITAGAWA, SAYING: "I would like them to be used for medical purposes, which will be possible once they can be made using soft materials.

And as humanoid robots are being developed, I hope this will help developers to create more realistic robots at a low cost." Those are potential positives but there are also potential problems. In the wrong hands - or rather on the wrong face - Kitagawa's face masks could pose a very realistic security risk.